Shoppers all over the world are buying more stuff from China than ever before. Even Americans are, despite the rising cost of tariffs.

全世界的消费者都在以前所未有的规模购买中国商品。美国人也不例外，尽管关税成本不断上升。

The only people who aren’t, it seems, are those in China.

唯一的例外似乎是中国国内的消费者。

That is at the heart of a very big problem for China’s top leadership as it tries to steer a weakening economy through the volatility of the trade war with the United States. China depends on the world’s consumers to keep its economy steady, a point that was made clear on Monday by its latest economic update.

这正是中国最高领导层面临的一个重大难题的核心所在——他们正试图引导疲软的经济穿越与美国的贸易战动荡。中国依赖全球消费者来维持经济稳定，这一点在其周一发布的最新经济报告中得到了明确体现。

China is on track this year to export $1 trillion more than it imports. That massive imbalance, and the country’s reliance on exports, complicates China’s position as its top leader, Xi Jinping, is expected to talk with President Trump next week. It is a growing concern for Mr. Trump, and officials around the world are insisting that China rebalance its economy more toward domestic consumer spending.

今年中国出口额预计将比进口额高出1万亿美元。这种巨大的贸易失衡以及中国对出口的依赖使中国的处境更加复杂——尤其是在其最高领导人习近平预计下周将与特朗普总统会晤之际。这一问题也令特朗普越来越担忧，全球各国官员正敦促中国调整经济结构平衡，更多转向国内消费。

Top Chinese officials are meeting this week to plot the country’s policies for the next five years. They are contending with a handful of challenges at home, including youth unemployment, a threadbare social welfare system and an aging population. The government has failed to take on these problems aggressively, instead tinkering with incremental policy changes and doubling down on investing in the factories that generate goods for export.

本周，中国高层官员召开会议，制定未来五年的政策方向。他们面临着若干国内挑战，包括青年失业、社会福利体系薄弱以及人口老龄化等问题。然而，政府并未积极解决这些问题，而是仅采取渐进式政策调整，并加倍投资于生产出口商品的工厂。

Yet tackling these issues could go a long way toward getting to the root of the problem for consumers like Chen Yiling, a mother of two.

然而，要解决这些结构性问题，或许正是帮助像两个孩子的母亲陈逸玲（音）这样的消费者摆脱困境的关键途径。

“I think the current economic climate is too bad,” Ms. Chen, 35, said as she browsed knickknacks with her 3-year-old daughter at a mall on the outskirts of Shanghai. “It’s hard for anyone to find a job, and even if they do, they’re easily fired.” Her husband works in finance but does not have a permanent job. The family is living off savings.

“我觉得现在的经济形势太糟糕了，”35岁的陈女士带着三岁的女儿在上海郊区的一家商场里逛饰品时说道。“现在谁都很难找到工作，就算找到了，也很容易被解雇。”她的丈夫在金融行业工作，但没有稳定职位。这一家人目前主要依靠积蓄生活。

北京的一个家电卖场。经济学家将中国消费者的悲观情绪归因于新冠疫情。

Economists have traced that kind of pessimism to the Covid-19 pandemic and China’s sudden lockdowns of neighborhoods and cities. Officials thought that a reversal of those policies at the end of 2022 would release pent-up demand and set off a spurt of “revenge spending,” as other countries had experienced.

经济学家将这种悲观情绪追溯到新冠疫情以及中国当时对社区和城市的突然封控。官员们原本认为，在2022年底放松这些防控措施后，中国会像其他国家一样出现被压抑已久的“报复性消费”热潮。

It never came.

但这种情况从未真正出现。

Unlike many national governments that handed out money to families during the pandemic, Beijing never put cash in people’s pockets. Households generally have less income today than they did before the pandemic, and they are dealing with rising health care costs. Chinese companies were also left to fend for themselves, and many cut back on pay and started letting employees go.

与许多在疫情期间向家庭发放补贴的国家政府不同，北京从未直接向民众发放现金。如今，家庭的总体收入水平普遍低于疫情前，同时还要面对不断攀升的医疗支出。中国的企业同样被迫自谋出路，许多公司削减了薪资，或者开始裁员。

A crash in housing prices that began in 2021 has also weighed heavily in a country where people sank their savings into real estate.

在这个国民将积蓄投入房地产的国家里，自2021年开始的房价暴跌也造成了沉重的打击。

Ms. Chen owns four apartments, three of which are occupied by her family. The other is rented out, but her tenant is asking her to lower the rent.

陈女士名下有四套公寓，其中三套供家人居住，另一套出租。但她的租客最近要求她降低租金。

“Many people are giving up their leases,” Ms. Chen said. “Rents aren’t as high as they were in previous years, so everyone’s looking to lower their rents.”

“现在很多人都在退租，”她说，“租金已经不像往年那么高了，所以大家都在想办法谈降租。”

To rev up the economy, Beijing started a consumer trade-in campaign in 2024 for people to exchange their old household appliances and cars for cheaper new ones. This year it added smartphones and other electronics.

为了刺激经济，北京在2024年启动了一项消费品“以旧换新”计划，鼓励人们用旧家电和汽车换购价格更实惠的新产品。今年，这项计划又扩展到了智能手机和其他电子产品。

That led to a burst of spending activity, but that is now waning. Ting Lu, the chief China economist for Nomura, the Japanese bank, is worried that if the program is extended for another year, it could begin to hurt companies that are slashing their prices to attract buyers.

这一举措最初带动了一波消费热潮，但如今热度正在减退。日本野村证券的首席中国经济学家陆挺担忧，如果该计划再延长一年，可能会对那些为吸引买家而大幅降价的企业造成伤害。

4月的上海车展。去年，中国启动了一项以旧换新计划，允许消费者用旧车和家电换购新产品并享受折扣。

“If there’s a need, that’s great,” said Tang Ying, who was shopping for a pillow with her partner on a recent Friday. “But if there’s no need, I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy something just because of the subsidy.”

“如果确实有需要，那当然很好，”唐颖（音）在一个星期五与伴侣外出购买枕头时说道。“但如果没有需要，我不会仅仅因为补贴就特地去买东西。”

Ms. Tang works for a company in the medical devices industry, which she said was going through layoffs. “This has led to a bit of a tight spot,” she said. Ms. Tang, who said she used to spend thousands of dollars a year on luxury items, has cut way back, though she used subsidies to replace a broken air-conditioner.

唐女士在一家医疗器械公司工作，她说公司正在裁员。“这让情况有点紧张，”她说。唐女士说她以前每年会花数千美元购买奢侈品，但现在大幅削减了开支，不过她确实利用补贴更换了一台坏掉的空调。

For the government to get consumers to feel confident to spend more, it will have to fix its pension system, which offers an average of $1 a day in retirement for more than half of China’s retired population.

要让消费者有信心增加支出，政府必须先修复养老金体系——目前，中国超过一半的退休人口平均每天仅能领取约1美元的退休金。

“This is really a problem that I strongly believe is at the core of China’s consumption,” Mr. Lu said. “If you don’t want to fall into poverty when you retire, then you have to save.”

“我认为这确实是中国消费问题的核心，”陆挺表示，“如果你不想在退休后陷入贫困，那你就只能存钱。”

Many people who have lost their jobs in recent years, or who have graduated without employment prospects, have turned to delivering food or packages. The gig economy employs more than 200 million people in jobs that have traditionally been insecure with limited benefits and often no social insurance.

近年来，许多失业的人、或者毕业后找不到工作的年轻人转而从事外卖或快递配送工作。零工经济雇佣了超过2亿人，从事传统上缺乏保障的工作，这些工作福利有限，往往没有社会保险。

For many young people, it is hard to see the benefit of saving when the government itself has flagged an underfunded system that may soon run out of money.

对于许多年轻人来说，当政府本身都已经指出养老金体系资金不足、可能很快耗尽时，很难看到储蓄的实际好处。

The government has so far made small fixes. It changed rules last month to require all employers to contribute to benefits for employees. Last year, it raised the statutory retirement age for the first time since the 1950s.

到目前为止，政府只做了一些小幅调整。上个月，它修改了规定，要求所有雇主为员工缴纳福利。今年，它自1950年代以来首次提高了法定退休年龄。

北京的一家珠宝店。由于政府养老金体系资金不足的警示，中国许多年轻人觉得储蓄意义不大。

The government has started funneling money to young couples to encourage them to have babies, but middle-age women who once helped to power a consumer boom are now faced with rising costs of aging parents and their own children.

政府也开始向年轻夫妇提供资金以鼓励生育，但那些曾经推动消费热潮的中年女性如今却要面对抚养年迈父母和自己孩子带来的日益增加的开支。

On a recent weekday, Huang Weijia, 45, and Jenny Wu, 42, were on a break from work at a community care clinic nearby. They shared a conversation and an ice cream inside a mall in the eastern city of Jiaxing. Both said that their salaries as doctors, about $1,400 a month, had decreased slightly, but that they felt relatively safe because they had government jobs.

在最近的一个工作日，45岁的黄伟佳（音）和42岁的珍妮·吴（音）在工作间隙来到嘉兴东部的一家商场，一边吃冰淇淋一边聊天，她们在附近的一家社区护理诊所工作。两人都表示，作为医生，他们的月薪约为9900元，虽然略有下降，但因为拥有政府工作，所以感觉相对有保障。

“My spending is higher at this stage, so it feels like expenses are particularly high, and it feels like I can’t save much,” said Ms. Wu, who has two teenagers and spends as much as $7,000 a year on each of their extracurricular studies.

“我现在这个阶段的支出比较高，所以感觉开销特别大，好像存不下什么钱，”吴女士说道。她有两个十几岁的孩子，每年在孩子的课外学习上花费高达5万元。

Ms. Huang chimed in, referring to her generation: “I think we’re the biggest spenders right now.” She also has two teenagers, and she estimated that she spent similar to what Ms. Wu did on each of her children.

黄女士接过话，说到她们这一代人：“我觉得我们现在是花钱最多的一代。”她也有两个十几岁的孩子，并估算自己在每个孩子身上的开支与吴女士差不多。

“Our parents are also getting older now, and they’re getting sick more often,” Ms. Huang said. “I used to think I could save while spending, but now I feel like I can’t.”

“我们的父母现在也越来越老了，而且生病的频率也高了，”黄女士说，“我以前觉得可以边花钱边存钱，但现在感觉根本存不下。”